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having a small problem sterilizing grain. I have increase the process duration to 1.5 hrs @ 15psi,because I'm at 6300 feet. Wish i could get higher, but the PC only goes to 15 psi.

I'm getting 50% failure rate up here, mostly bacterial contamination, and sometimes the mycelium grows through it slow. Id like to figure this out.

other details. Because the sterilization time was increase the grain take some addition heat. the bottom's of the jar or myco bags have blown up grains. Much worse than id like to see. my thoughts were to raise the jar off the bottom with any means i can figure out. thou i havn't tried it yet.

You think the blow up grain is causing the contam? The rest of the process has worked for me for years, but i was at sea level to. i stay pretty clean in the house.

Quote:charvo said:having a small problem sterilizing grain. I have increase the process duration to 1.5 hrs @ 15psi,because I'm at 6300 feet. Wish i could get higher, but the PC only goes to 15 psi.

I'm getting 50% failure rate up here, mostly bacterial contamination, and sometimes the mycelium grows through it slow. Id like to figure this out.

other details. Because the sterilization time was increase the grain take some addition heat. the bottom's of the jar or myco bags have blown up grains. Much worse than id like to see. my thoughts were to raise the jar off the bottom with any means i can figure out. thou i havn't tried it yet.

You think the blow up grain is causing the contam? The rest of the process has worked for me for years, but i was at sea level to. i stay pretty clean in the house.

Yeah, I think it's even overkill. If your contam rate is more than about 5%, it's something besides your altitude.Have you ever grown anything successfully? Or have everything failed 50%?Oh, and watch these videos: http://www.mushroomvideos.com/

well i've had many successful grows. I recently moved here from sea level, And have been fighting my process since. I dont grow alot of cubes anymore. which is probably what you'll mostly see in my old archives.

In any case we're sterilizing grain it's the same anyway. Just wondered what others were doing at high elevations. My experience tells me it's the exploded grain.

do have alot of blown up grain after sterilizing for 2 hours or even 1.5?do you have to raise the jars or bags up to prevent excessive heat on the bottom?

this is just a shot in the dark, but if your doing something which is in an enclosed environment i wouldn't think it would matter what elevation your at... like when your in an airplane in a pressurized cabin...

Quote:cloudsaregathering said:this is just a shot in the dark, but if your doing something which is in an enclosed environment i wouldn't think it would matter what elevation your at... like when your in an airplane in a pressurized cabin...

are you referring to the pressure inside the PC. Altitude has an effect on the boiling temp of water. The pressure maybe 15 psi,but at a lower boiling temp than required for total sterilization. im at 6000ft water boils around 200f i think. Here's a link i found on the subject, it's probably been dicussed a hundred times here.

the real issue is exploding grain from lengthened time of heat. I'm not used to having that happen. I guess raising the jars is my only option. When i was at sea level I sterilizing for 1 hour and had maybe 5% fail.